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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28182282">Ornamental</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JjdoggieS/pseuds/JjdoggieS'>JjdoggieS</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>All Is Calm, All Is Bright [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Ben Is Stressed, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Movies, Cuddling, Cute, F/M, Featuring Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Ficmas, Ficmas 2020, Fluff, Harcest Ficmas, Harcest Ficmas 2020, Power Outage, Vanya is a sweetheart, and childish, getting warm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:02:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,167</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28182282</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JjdoggieS/pseuds/JjdoggieS</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben wanted it to be the perfect Christmas, he needed it to be the perfect Christmas. It was the first holiday that he and Vanya could celebrate as an official couple. But as fate would have it, something always has to go wrong for them. And in this case, a power outage on the coldest day of the year.</p>
<p>Harcest Ficmas: Day 15 - Getting Warm</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ben Hargreeves/Vanya Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>All Is Calm, All Is Bright [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034832</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Harcest Ficmas 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ornamental</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxbunnykissesxx/gifts">xxbunnykissesxx</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He should’ve known that on the coldest day of the year, in the midst of an ice storm, the day before Christmas Eve, that that’s when his power, and therefore his furnace, would go out. Ben had wanted it to be the perfect Christmas for his and Vanya’s first holiday as an official couple. And, of course, this has to happen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They’d been all cuddle together, watching Vanya’s favorite Christmas movie, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; and it was right at the part when the prospector Yukon Cornelius fell off the cliff with Bumble the Abominable Snow Monster of the North to save Rudolph, Hermey, and Clarice from being eaten by Bumble when the screen suddenly went black. They’d already had the lights off, so Ben got up, reluctantly, and tried to turn the tv when the remote wouldn’t work, and the screen remained black.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When the tv didn’t come back on, Vanya got off the couch and flipped the light switch and, nothing. Ben could barely see Vanya with the strips of moonlight peaking in around the blinds as she turned to look at him and said, “I think the power’s out Ben.” He figured that’s what had happened, he should’ve been expecting it to happen with the horrible weather outside for the past week. “Maybe it’s just here, we could check the neighbors?” Vanya suggested, “See if maybe they still have power?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t expect them to actually have power, as the chances of only their apartment losing power was slim, especially since they weren’t using that much power. But, Ben hoped that it was just a temporary issue, that was only affecting them, somehow, and would be fixed soon. And, as he’d suspected, it </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> just his apartment, or even just his apartment building, that had lost power, a good portion of the city was in the cold, and the dark. There was a powerline just on the outskirts of the city that had gotten too cold in the snow and snapped, and from what his neighbor, Mr. Carrington, told them, the city officials and power company were suspecting that the power would be back hopefully by tomorrow morning. (He’d also mentioned that the power </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span> not be back until the day after Christmas, but Ben wasn’t going to even </span>
  <em>
    <span>contemplate </span>
  </em>
  <span>that as being an option.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>By the time Ben and Vanya had found a neighbor of Ben’s that was home </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> was able to give them </span>
  <em>
    <span>some</span>
  </em>
  <span> information about what was going on, most of the residual heat that had been left in Ben’s apartment when everything shut off was gone. As Ben tried to think of </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> that they could do for the remainder of the evening, since it was just shy of 9 o’clock and it wasn’t like either of them had been going to bed at 9 o’clock since they’d been eight, but everything that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span> think of, that he’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>planned</span>
  </em>
  <span> on doing, would require power. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And as he thought and mentally crossed off the list of things, Ben grew a </span>
  <em>
    <span>bit</span>
  </em>
  <span> frustrated. This was </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> but what he would’ve wanted for </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> Christmas! While Ben internally lamented over the loss of his planned holiday, Vanya pulled </span>
  <em>
    <span>several</span>
  </em>
  <span> blankets that Ben hadn’t even realized he’d actually had from the linen closet in his apartment’s bathroom and was covering the living room’s floor and the couch with them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once Ben noticed what Vanya was doing, he asked her with a laugh, “What are you doing Vanya?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well,” Vanya started, her head popping up and over the couch from working on whatever blanket she’d been fiddling with, “I thought, that, since we didn’t have power, if </span>
  <em>
    <span>we</span>
  </em>
  <span> used these blankets and built a blanket fort, then we could use our body heat to stay warm you know?” A bright red blush spread across Vanya’s cheeks before she quickly added, “Because you know, the power’s out and everything.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And while Vanya’s claimed reasoning made sense, Ben had a </span>
  <em>
    <span>feeling</span>
  </em>
  <span> she had a different motive. “You just want to cuddle don’t you?” Ben guessed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another bright red blush colored Vanya’s cheeks as she sputtered out, “Um, I mean. You don’t. I, um. If, if you, if you wanted to, we could. I mean like-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Vanya,” Ben called, moving from where he’d been standing, hopping over the couch’s back to join Vanya on the couch, pulling her into him, whispering into her ear, “we can do whatever you want to do. Just ask.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanya giggled, adorably, a third blush, albeit a lighter pink, spreading across her cheeks before reaching over the edge of the couch, and grabbing a blanket she’d dropped and pulled it over bother their heads, curling into Ben’s side soon after. With the power out, the sun already having set, </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> the blanket pulled over them, Ben couldn’t see a thing, not even Vanya who was mere inches away from his face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As they cuddled together under the blanket, which surprisingly was actually keeping them fairly warm despite the drastic drop in temperature the rest of Ben’s apartment was going through, Vanya started asking him somewhat random, theoretical questions. Like, what he would do if he won the lottery and became a millionaire overnight? How many kids would he ever want to have? What was the weirdest thing he ever did was? And, would he rather have six dogs or seven cats?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ben answered each of Vanya’s questions, often with a laugh and what he’d thought he’d prefer or do in the given situation. And once he did answer one of her questions, Ben would ask Vanya similarly random and theoretical questions, including his favorite of what is the weirdest food combination you’ve had, which apparently was ruffled potato chips and chocolate ice cream, eliciting several more giggles from Vanya with each question.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At some point, while they’d been cuddle together, the power had been restored far sooner than anyone had been expecting it to, and Ben and Vanya only found this out by having the absolute shit scared out of them when Ben’s television turned back on and resumed playing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and was still in the midst of Rudolph and Hermey were calling after Yukon Cornelius as he fell off the cliff with the Bumble. So when Rudolph and Hermey yelled after Yukon Cornelius, Vanya and Ben both nearly jumped off the couch, Ben scrambling for the remote that had been left on the side table and pausing the movie.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>While having the power go out, or being scared by a kid’s movie when it came back on, weren't a part of Ben’s initial plans for having the </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect Christmas</span>
  </em>
  <span> for his and Vanya’s first year together as an official couple, cuddling with his girlfriend and reminiscing about some of the weirder, and dumber, things they’ve done before, several of them with each other and their friends, was </span>
  <em>
    <span>certainly</span>
  </em>
  <span> far from a spoiled evening or ruined holiday. And if anything, it made it quite a bit more memorable.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Update survey if you're interested -&gt; https://forms.gle/kj4UBqMeUThavmnx6</p></blockquote></div></div>
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